Here's An Idea

I'm in the midst of an extended series of posts that will probably begin to see the light of day in the next couple of weeks so today's effort is not going to involve a lot of heavy lifting.  I thought it would be fun to look at some of Woody Gelman's filing system today, namely the Idea Books he kept at Topps.

Woody had an extensive filing system and I'd imagine a pretty good amount of space at Brooklyn HQ by his notebooks, ephemera and whatnot.  He thought of this as part of his "idea retrieval" methods, which in a way are what the internet became well before anyone outside of ARPA or Bell Labs could grasp such a concept. Unfortunately, instead of being kept intact, these notebooks have been looted and pillaged over the years with all the pages and files being scattered across the hobby landscape with reckless abandon, stymying any hope of getting a complete picture painted. And so we have scraps...

Here's a neat one, possibly the earliest I've seen, 1955's Hocus Focus (large):

It's a little fuzzy and the infamous Woody all caps scrawl makes it even harder to read but above IDEA it says "Published" and the Item is "Photographic".  The Subclassification is "Hidden Pictures" and the See Under line has the set name.  This would not be consistent throughout Woody's long tenure at Topps, although he appears to have used mostly the same Idea page for his entire tenure with the company while inconsistently filling in the blanks. Having said that, the one I'll show next does not have any of the lined items off to the right, which looks like they tracked reaction from some group or groups of people (Topps execs, kids?) and some progress detail, which seems to be blank on most of the ones I've seen. I wonder if they kept a "clean version of some sets to show prospective licencees?

Here is "Copyright Merch." of a "test series", namely King Kong from 1965 (I have it as either '65 or 1966 but no matter this seems to cinch it at the earlier year), that got pulled when Donruss got the licensing deal.

Tattoos? Got ya covered (sorry) with 1967's Dr. Doolittle, unclear why it's not "licensed merchandise" though:

I'll close with perhaps the most interesting one of all:

"Inserts Types" is what this is, and yes that is a 1964 Topps Giant Size Sandy Koufax cropped excerpt shrunk down to the size of a 1969 Deckle. This makes me think the original idea was to do this almost-great insert in color, which would have been stupendous.  I suspect color would have been a bit more expensive though, in a year of chaos and cost (a lot of pictures had to be takes once the MLBPA agreed to an enhanced deal with Topps and due to the expansion that year). No clue what 27-B means though in the Progress Record.

Pretty neat, eh?

Fail Safe

Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins recently sent along one of the most stupendous Topps trade ads I have ever seen.  Dating to 1967 this ad details failed test issues-and there's a bunch!

It's easier to see if I blow up the photo:

I'll start at twelve o'clock:

Secret Agent Bubble Gum and Bubble Gum Shots capitalize on the interest in James Bond/Get Smart spy thrillers then sweeping the country.  A pen shaped piece of gum is not all that exciting, now is it?  It seems this would have been a good way to repurpose Get Smart Secret Agent kits but it's just a confectionery item. Bubble Gum Shots?  No thanks.

Going clockwise we get more confections. Fuzzies sound gross and Happy Hearts candy must have been a test for a Valentine's Day product.  Below them though we get to Captain Nice, a legendary rarity among test collectors.  I am freaking out over that box-wow!

The planes are Fighter Planes. They are even tougher than Captain Nice and I've only ever seen packs, never an assembled toy. As I have determined from my research, the planes date to 1967, just like the Captain.

Whistle Gum gives the purchaser a plastic flute I guess. The next item is a lot more interesting though-King Kong makes an appearance! Kong dates to 1966, despite a 1965 copyright as it's one of the first Topps sets to have a commodity code on the box.

Bag o'Baseball bubble gum is intriguing but looks like straight up confection. That leaves us with Nutty Tickets, another 1967 set which is tough but never struck me as being "test issue tough".

Ten items, ten duds!

King Kong Redux

Intrepid reader chickcomics left an informative comment regarding my last post on King Kong. His message reminded me about a fantastic article in The Wrapper #150 by Jeff and Bob Marks, two well known Non-Sport collectors, dealers and authors who are extremely well-versed in Topps test issues, uncut sheets and the like. The article addresses in detail three tough Topps black & white test issues: King Kong, Flash Gordon and Daniel Boone (which is not sepia, that's just how the cover of The Wrapper looked).



(Thanks to Les Davis for permission for the above and two scans below)

The article also showed, ironically in black and white, the boxes the first two sets were sold in. The King Kong box is described as having "hot pink/red with black accents."



Flash Gordon is described as being from 1968 with the box being printed in "electric blue with black and white accents."



Amazingly, four full boxes of ol' Flash were found by the Marks brothers in 1984 and all of the packs had the clear cello wrappers with the Fun Pack "Trading Card" overwrap described here previously.



Why they would be wrapped like this, I cannot even begin to speculate. They do not specify how King Kong was wrapped but as mentioned last time, it is believed a wax wrapper exists.

Now, the article goes on to describe how Topps staff used a rented moviola to view an actual print of King Kong to identify which scenes (or more specifically frames) they would want to use in the card set. Apparently Topps declined to proceed on the set and the images they had selected were sold by them to Donruss for use in their King Kong set.

You can read more if you want to; Les Davis, who publishes The Wrapper sells article reprints for a nominal fee. To purchase, contact him at: leswrap@comcast.net

It is interesting to note the Daniel Boone set shown on The Wrapper's cover, also an infamously tough test issue.



Why, when the world was turning to color around 1965, did Topps persist in issuing black and white card sets of TV shows? In addition to the above sets (I count King Kong and Flash Gordon as a TV staples by the mid-60's), black and white sets were issued as late as 1969. I believe these are most, if not all of the TV-themed sets issued (or at least printed) sans color in the 1960's by Topps:

1965 Bewitched
1965 Soupy Sales
1965 Superman
1965 Gilligan's Island
1966 Get Smart
1966 Flipper
1966 Lost In Space
1966 Man from U.N.C.L.E.
196? Bonanza (possibly the rarest of them all)
1968 Julia
1969 Room 222 (also exists in a color version)

Some of these sets are among the rarest Topps ever printed, perhaps their lack of color contributed to this state. Some even share common design elements.

Well, maybe we should not be surprised. Why, even some of their baseball sets were issued in black & white up until 1974:



(12/28/08-Edited to add 1966 Flipper and Man from U.N.C.L.E. to list of B&W TV Cards)

King Kong

Since I have posted about Topps very rare Flash Gordon cards recently, I thought it might be time to look at a companion set, namely King Kong, which was issued by Topps subsidiary Bubbles, Inc. Here is one of the great movie shots of all time in case you forgot what a marvel this picture was.



One of the most famous movies of all time, it was 33 years old when Topps developed a 55 card black and white set in 1966. These are rare cards and I certainly do not own any. However, I was organizing my hard drive recently and found a scan of two partial uncut sheets that make up the full set. The photo above looks to be memorialized in the bottom left corner.



Unlike the very similar Flash Gordon set, which was possibly issued in retail cello packs, King Kong appears to have actually been tested in wax packs as John Neuner's Checklist & Prices of U.S. Non Sport Wrappers has a wrapper listed with a production code of 0-418-21-01-6 (the last digit signifies the year).

Interestingly, Donruss also was given a license to produce a King Kong Set and those can be found rather easily:


(From monsterwax.com)

Topps must not have liked the results of the test they did and declined to do a national release while Donruss forged ahead. The 1965 Copyright Date is when RKO granted the license, by the way.

The backs of the Topps cards have a narrative that follows the movie, the Donruss cards have puzzle pieces. Scans of the Topps fronts and backs are hard to find, I'll post some If I ever find a few.

While I understand the appeal of both Flash Gordon and King Kong as they were all over TV in the 60's, why Topps issued black and white cards in the 1960's is beyond me.